On Friday the Justices will meet for their January 8 Conference; our list of "petitions to watch" for that Conference will be available soon. The January sitting will begin on Monday, January 11.

• Zubik v. Burwell
  Does the availability of a regulatory method for nonprofit religious employers to comply with the HHS contraceptive mandate eliminate the substantial burden on religious exercise in violation of RFRA that the Court recognized in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.?
• Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole
  Whether, when applying the “undue burden” standard of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Fifth Circuit erred in concluding that this standard permits Texas to enforce, in nearly all circumstances, laws that would cause a significant reduction in the availability of abortion services while failing to advance the State’s interest in promoting health - or any other valid interest.
• Evenwel v. Abbott
  Does the "one-person, one-vote" principle require states to use voter population, as opposed to total population, when drawing state legislative districts?
• Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association
  Are public-sector "agency shop" agreements unconstitutional under the First Amendment?
• Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
  Does the use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions by the University of Texas violate the Equal Protection Clause?
• Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins
  Whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a bare violation of a federal statute.

Conference of January 8

• Bear Valley Mutual Water Co. v. Jewell (1) Whether the provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) “displace” the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or otherwise render NEPA analysis unnecessary, thus eliminating the requirement of environmental review when the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) adopts a designation of “critical habitat” that has the potential to significantly affect the human environment; and (2) whether Section 2(c)(2) of the ESA is a meaningless, non-operative statement of policy that fails to create any substantive or enforceable rights regarding cooperation by FWS with state and local governmental agencies to resolve water resource issues arising from administration of the ESA in concert with conservation of endangered species.
• Ash v. Anderson Merchandisers, LLC (1) Whether, when a district court dismisses a complaint without leave to amend, a subsequent motion for leave to amend should be judged by ordinary Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) standards (as the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits have held), or whether a post-judgment motion seeking leave to amend is a “disfavored” motion that the court has “considerable discretion to deny,” as the Eighth Circuit (joining the minority view of the First, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits) held here; and (2) whether, when considering whether a plaintiff has unduly delayed seeking leave to amend after a dismissal for failure to state a claim, the court must count only the time from the date on which the motion was granted (as the Second, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits have held), or whether the court may penalize the plaintiff for not seeking to amend while the motion was pending by counting the time from the date on which a motion to dismiss was filed, as the Eighth Circuit (in accord with the views of the First and Third Circuits) held here.
• Kansas v. Dull Whether the Kansas Supreme Court misinterpreted and improperly expanded the Supreme Court's decisions in Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama when it extended those decisions to a sentence that does not involve life imprisonment, holding that the Eighth Amendment categorically bars a sentence of mandatory lifetime postrelease supervision (i.e., non-incarceration) for juveniles convicted of serious sex offenses.
• State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. v. United States ex rel Rigsby (1) What standard governs the decision whether to dismiss a relator's claim for violation of the False Claims Act's seal requirement; and (2) whether and under what standard a corporation or other organization may be deemed to have “knowingly” presented a false claim, or used or made a false record, in violation of section 3729(a) of the False Claims Act based on the purported collective knowledge or imputed ill intent of employees other than the employee who made the decision to present the claim or record found to be false, where (i) the employee submitting the claim or record independently made the decision to present the claim or record in good faith after reviewing the available information and (ii) there was no causal nexus between the submission of the false claim or record and the purported collective knowledge or imputed ill intent of those other employees.

More Petitions »

• Whole Woman's Health v. Cole symposium
• Zubik v. Burwell symposium
• Fisher II symposium
• Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association
• One person, one vote and Evenwel